


Your Solid Ground

by HectorRashbaum (FifteenDozenTimes)



Category: Jonas Brothers, The Academy Is...
Genre: M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-22
Updated: 2010-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:27:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/HectorRashbaum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Mike woke up with wings is the day he knew for sure angels aren't real. Kevin's faith is harder to shake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Solid Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [**anon_lovefest**](http://community.livejournal.com/anon_lovefest/) request for more Carvin wingfic, with bonus! journey of self-discovery. Title comes from Nickel Creek's [When You Come Back Down](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwkpihGwSj0) for three reasons - it is canonically one of Kevin's favorites, I've been itching to set a Mike/Kevin fic to it for ages, and it's about (metaphorical, whatever) wings.

There are angels in Mike's dreams again, like last night, like every night the past two weeks. Tonight he tried not sleeping, drank too much coffee, refused to go to his bunk 'cause he can never sleep on the shitty couch in the back lounge.

Except he's dreaming, so never say never. Fuck.

The only thing different is this time he doesn't wake up to a silent, concerned face (or faces) asking what the fuck he was dreaming about, laughing at him for talking, laughing more when it takes him a minute to figure out where the Hell he is, disoriented from something he can barely remember.

This time he wakes up to Tom's way too loud, "holy shit, what the _fuck_?", to a glimpse of feathery white out of the corner of his eye. Still dreaming, okay, except Tom's never been in his dreams before, at least not the angel ones, and they're never this clear, this harshly lit by whatever morning sun's coming through the blinds. Mike turns his head, blur of white feathers sharpening into the steep curve of a giant fucking wing that's – attached to his back.

That's never happened before, either.

*

Demi Lovato is a fucking mosquito of a girl, but in a good way, whatever the fuck that means. Mike's got to stop stealing metaphors from Butcher. She's around them whenever she can be, which, let's be fucking honest, if Mike'd had the money to travel wherever the fuck he wanted whenever the fuck he wanted, and an idol who'd wanted him around, at seventeen, he'd do the exact same thing. And Bill's totally happy to play father figure (the wise mentor kind, not the creepy George Michael kind), so whatever.

Mike still sometimes expects him to tell people the truth, to forget not everyone can just not even blink at a bandmate suddenly developing the ability to fly. But when Demi first spends time on their bus, he just slings an arm around her shoulder (she blushes, because everything Bill does makes her blush) and says, "young Carden here values his alone time. In the rip-your-eyeballs-out-of-your-sockets-if-you-disturb-him sense of 'values'."

She giggles a little, shares an eye roll with Mike because Jesus, Bill, talk like a normal fucking person, and never once so much as knocks when Mike's behind closed doors, stretching his wings to ease the cramps he gets binding them down under his shirts all the time.

*

"You're a fucking moron," Mike tells Siska when he places the curly-haired round-cheeked guy who came to soundcheck with Demi.

"She wouldn't bring the pretty one," is all Siska says, like the only reason Mike might possibly think he's stupid is he asked to meet the wrong fucking Jonas Brother. But that's the best he's getting, 'cause Siska's already bounding over, hollering something about a...bear wearing a bikini? What the fuck.

"This place is turning into the fucking Disney Channel," Mike says, except apparently everyone wanted to meet the Jonas Brother so he might as well have kept it in his head.

*

The only good thing about binding his wings down – they retract to a point, not enough to hide under a t-shirt on their own but enough he can wrap them down so he just looks like he has shitty posture – is it's the best feeling in the entire world when he pulls the binding loose and stretches them out. Years of Tom's insistence on sharing a bunk, of waking up stiff and cramped from too many limbs in too small a space, were absolutely nothing on this shit.

"Oh," he hears, just over the sound of his wings beating the air around while he flaps them slowly, working out enough stiffness he can play tonight without looking like he's in pain. "I – oh. Oh my gosh."

There's only one person that'd be in the venue who would actually say "gosh"; sure enough, when Mike spins around, Kevin Jonas is standing in the doorway, eyes so wide he barely has any face left for the rest of his features.

"Shut the door," Mike snaps, runs through a list in his head of all the people who don't know who could walk by at any minute, god_dammit_, snaps it again.

"I – oh. Oh, wow, I – sorry. Sorry. Okay." He shuts the door, but with him on the inside instead of the outside. Goddammit, this is – fucking Demi. Fucking _Bill_.

"Get the fuck - " he starts, but the way Kevin's staring at him he can't even fucking finish. His eyes keep getting even bigger, like that was even fucking possible, and there are – shit, kid's crying. Shitting goddammit Mike is going to kill everyone. "The fuck is wrong with you?"

Kevin's mouth opens, closes, opens again, but the only sound that's coming is the harsh panicky breathing of someone who's about to hyperventilate. He raises a hand to cover his mouth, and Mike catches a glint of silver on his finger.

Purity ring. Of fucking course, the first person in years to see these is someone who actually believes in fucking angels. Mike scrubs a hand through his hair, retracts his wings a little. "Kid, sit down."

Kevin sits, right where he is, and doesn't stop the fucking staring.

"I'm not your fucking religious experience," Mike says, but that doesn't convince him to move to the couch or stop the creepy bug-eyed crying thing. Not that it should have. But. Shit, this kid is freaking him the fuck out.

"You – I – oh my _gosh_," Kevin finally manages, breathing like he's just run a marathon. Mike sighs, crouches in front of him.

"Kevin. Breathe."

Kevin blinks at him a few times (maybe that's why he was crying, he'd stopped fucking blinking), and listens.

*

Demi won't stop watching him, from where she's tucked under Bill's arm, and for Bill to not have her undivided attention is kind of weird. Not that he thought it escaped notice that Kevin disappeared for an hour earlier, how red his eyes were when Mike finally got him calmed down enough to rejoin the group, the fact she'd been warned about when Mike disappears behind closed doors. Still, he's had enough being stared at for the day.

"I'm going back to the hotel," he says when he finally feels like he can get within shouting distance of Bill without her eyes setting him on fire.

"Cool. Grab Kevin on your way? He was looking to get out of here, I think."

Mike doesn't miss the way Demi's glare intensifies when Bill mentions Kevin, he just chooses to ignore it. "You guys are staying?"

"I talked them into it. I'm very convincing," Bill says; Mike chooses to ignore he's wiggling his eyebrows to imply something dirty about a seventeen-year-old girl and a professional virgin. He's very good at ignoring Bill.

The cold air hits him like the best fucking brick wall in the world, takes his breath for a second. Jacket next time, maybe. Kevin's somewhere behind him, just out of his peripheral vision, probably trying to get a look at his wings. He catches up after they pass a group of fans Mike chats with for a few seconds; his wings are twitching against their binding in the crisp air, and he just wants to get somewhere he can let them out, maybe stand by the window and try not to think about how if he were home, he could be flying.

"What are you here for?" Kevin asks, when they've been walking side-by-side in silence for a block or so, in that same shaky voice he'd been stammering out nonsense syllables of shock earlier.

"Good fucking question," Mike says, and, "I'm not a fucking angel, kid, Jesus, I'm not telling you again."

Kevin just looks over at him, eyes actually kind of small when they're not comically big in the face of a revelatory experience, kind of pretty, actually. He doesn't talk again.

*

_Did it hurt?_

idk. not enuf 2 wake me up

:(

?

You were supposed to say 'did what hurt'?

...fucking dork

Mike rubs his hands over his face, trying to determine if he can wake up enough to bother getting out of bed, or if he should sleep until his actual alarm goes off. He doesn't look at the clock, because he doesn't want to know what ungodly fucking hour Kevin thought was okay for texting.

Sleep doesn't apparently want to be his buddy anymore, though, so he gets up and glances out his window to make sure he actually did see a Starbucks out there last night, wasn't imagining shit in a drunken haze.

While he's waiting for his Red Eye, he pulls his phone out again.

_did what hurt?_

:D :D :D WHEN YOU FELL FROM HEAVEN? :D :D :D

*

"Kevin Jonas is a nice boy," Bill says, with about eight hundred different degrees of inflection. Oh God.

"Kevin Jonas is a delusional boy," Mike says, doesn't look up from his book.

"Maybe the rest of the time." Bill sits down like he'd been invited, sprawls on the other end of the couch so Mike has to tuck his legs up. "Right now, he's believing what he saw. Which, by the way, is beside the point."

"You said five words, Bill, how am I supposed to know what your point was?"

"Six."

Mike just grumbles, slips his bookmark into place in case this is one of those conversations where Bill thinks snatching his book out of his hands is any kind of appropriate, still doesn't look up. If he can see Bill's face, eight hundred different inflections will turn into eight thousand, and Mike's not in the fucking mood.

"I had several points," he says, gets back up instead of making a grab for Mike's book. "And you know what every single one of them was."

*

_You didn't tell me you're in LA next week_

dont u live in tx?

No. I expect to be on your guest list.

sry. and k.

*

If Mike's gonna crush all Kevin's hopes and beliefs, the least he could do is hold the conversation in a relatively comfortable, private place. He doesn't bother explaining this to Bill when he lets him know he and Kevin are going to Mike's house, 'cause Bill looks like he's owed an explanation.

Mike's been practicing, running the whole thing out in his head, writing it down, taking a red pen to it like the fist of an angry God, scratching everything and starting again. He's never been good at this part, at handling other people's expectations, other people's confusion.

(All he hears in his head when he practices, when he writes, when he tries to figure out how he can tell Kevin everything he doesn't want to hear, are Bill's years-old admonishments about Tom, about how you can't _do_ this, Mike, you can't expect everyone to handle this better than you are, he's fucking _confused_.)

The practicing was fucking pointless, though; as soon as they're inside, as soon as Mike opens his mouth to speak, Kevin surges forward and kisses him.

Well. That's. Okay. What?

Kevin kisses sweet and unsure, like he used up all his courage when he leaned forward and presses his lips to Mike. And despite what Kevin thinks, Mike's only human - _only_ human, _all_ human – and those shy little kisses are completely, totally irresistible.

"Mike," Kevin manages when he pulls back, breathing heavy, staring at Mike (always. Always the fucking staring). "Mike, is this. This is okay, right?"

Mike starts to answer so he can go back to kissing, but something in Kevin's eyes, in the quiver to his voice, in the way he's clutching Mike's t-shirt like he's drowning – Kevin's not asking Mike if he wants to make out, Kevin's asking a question of his fucking angel. God_dammit_.

He can ignore that, can answer for Mike and pretend he didn't catch the double meaning, can claim his conscience is clean when Kevin inevitably starts acting like a kicked puppy and Bill inevitably plays Guardian of All Disney Kids.

"I'm not God, Kevin."

Kevin just clings tighter, curls in and rests his forehead on Mike's shoulder, breathes harsh and unsteady into Mike's neck. This isn't _fair_.

"I don't. Mike. I - "

"And I'm not a fucking angel, okay, Jesus, I'm the fucking birdman."

"You're - " Mike can barely hear him, quiet anyway, muffled even more in Mike's skin.

"I'm not."

"I need you to be."

"No, you don't."

Kevin looks at him again, then, eyes red and damp, and what the fuck, Mike is about two seconds away from telling him what he wants to hear just to make him stop looking so _broken_.

"I can't - "

"You already did."

"That was - "

"Kevin, I – shit. I can't tell you what God fucking wants from you, okay, and if that's what you want from me, you can't fucking have it whether or not I want to give it. I can tell you what I want, what I think you want, and what the fucking amoral dirtbag I am thinks God might think of it. But that's not what you need."

Kevin blinks slow, like he's fighting something to close his eyes, once, twice, and then he kisses Mike again.

*  
_no one's heard from u or the jonas. plz confirm u didn't grind his bones 2 make ur bread_

He can neither confirm nor deny – Kev

did he sully ur virtue? U can tell me. Reply w/ 'bad touch' if u need an adult

I'm shutting his phone off, Bill.

Mike's stretched out on his stomach, wings folded up against his back; when he'd woken up the first time, they'd been stretched out, the right one blanketing Kevin.

"If that's Bill, tell him to fuck the ever-loving fuck off."

"I did," Kevin says, sets Mike's phone down and burrows back in, Mike rolling onto his side to give him more room to snuggle. The cotton of his t-shirt – Mike's t-shirt – is soft and warm against Mike's skin, and he could absolutely stay here all day.

"You okay?"

Kevin bites his lip, smiles a little, rests his forehead against Mike's and presses a quick kiss to his lips. That's enough of an answer, and Mike grins back.


End file.
